Obama sending envoys to Mideast

President Barack Obama is sending his top Middle East peace envoys back to the region in an emergency, last-ditch effort to head off the Palestinian campaign for statehood at the United Nations next week.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced Tuesday that David Hale, the special envoy for Middle East peace, and Dennis Ross, the top Mideast adviser at the National Security Council, will be dispatched immediately.

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“I’m sending David Hale and Dennis Ross back to the region in the next days to meet with both Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and President [Mahmud] Abbas,” Clinton said Tuesday.

Ross and Hale make the trip as the administration seeks to bring Israel and Palestinians back to the table for peace talks, instead of the Palestinians pursuing a unilateral bid for statehood. The Obama administration’s position is that statehood must be negotiated in direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.

“The only way of getting a lasting solution is through direct negotiations between the parties and the route to that lies in Jerusalem and Ramallah, not in New York,” Clinton said.

Hale and Ross will attempt “to create a sustainable platform for negotiations that can produce the two-state outcome that we seek,” she added, according to The Associated Press.

The Palestinian government plans to ask the U.N. Security Council for a vote on statehood status next Tuesday or Wednesday, Palestinian Liberation Organization representative Maen Areikat told reporters in Washington on Tuesday morning. The resolution, which is still being drafted, would likely be introduced by Lebanon, Areikat said.

Areikat said he had no direct information on Hale and Ross being sent to the region in an effort to stop the Palestinian campaign, but had some hints that such a trip was in the works.

If, as now looks certain, the U.S. vetoes the Security Council resolution, the Palestinians may ask for an upgrade in U.N. status from the General Assembly, where the U.S. has no veto power and the vast majority of countries are believed to back statehood. However, Areikat signaled that the General Assembly step would not immediately follow a Security Council resolution.